MCSO: $600k worth of cocaine washed ashore day after drug busts

These bricks of cocaine washed up on Jupiter Island on Monday, the Martin County Sheriff’s Office said. (Courtesy of Martin County Sheriff’s Office)

Almost 35 kilos of cocaine worth more than $600,000 washed ashore along Jupiter Island on Monday night after sheriff’s officers had made several drug busts this past weekend, Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said Tuesday.

The cocaine, in bagged bricks, was likely from drug-trafficking boat routes off the coast. Smugglers may have capsized, dropped the load by mistake or seen law-enforcement officers and abandoned the narcotics, Snyder said.

“We don’t know why it went overboard, but we think it wasn’t in the water very long,” Snyder said. The drugs that washed ashore reveal that smuggling drugs into South Florida from the Caribbean is still very much a problem, he said.

“Nobody (at the sheriff’s office) remembers a load this large in recent memory,” Snyder said. The market value is more than $600,000, but it sells for more on the streets, said Christine Weiss, sheriff’s spokeswoman.

The find came just 24 hours after a weekend of drug busts along Interstate 95 in Martin County. In the drug operation, the sheriff’s office arrested 80 people after traffic stops on I-95 and seized a substantial amount of narcotics on Saturday and Sunday, Weiss said.

In just two days, the sheriff’s office seized marijuana, cocaine, flakka, hashish oil and morphine sulfate pills, among other drugs.

“Everybody in law enforcement knows that I-95 is a major drug trafficking route, and it runs right through our county,” Snyder said.

Many of those arrested were charged with drug possession, but some had enough narcotics in the car to warrant trafficking charges. The sheriff’s office tries to do the drug operation as often as possible, Snyder said,

“We want to send a message,” Snyder said. “Don’t come through Martin County with drugs.”